Kansas, USA
July 20, 2009

Do you want a successful wheat crop? Any thriving wheat grower will tell you that certified seed is the best choice you can make. Insect and disease resistance, soil condition tolerance, and maturity are some of the traits provided with certified varieties. Certified seed has been grown under specific conditions, inspected and tested by Kansas Crop Improvement Association, and cleaned by approved seed conditioners to ensure varietal purity. This fall, several new certified seed varieties will be out on the market for seed producers and growers to take advantage of.

Kansas Wheat Alliance will be releasing Everest this fall for seed production. Everest is a Hard Red Winter wheat with excellent resistance characteristics. Everest is resistant to leaf rust, stripe rust, barley yellow dwarf, and the Hessian Fly. It also has a moderate resistance to Fusairum head blight. Everest is best suited for the east and central areas of Kansas. If white wheat is what you are looking for, another KWA variety, Tiger, will be available as certified seed. Tiger is a Hard White Winter wheat with characteristics including leaf rust, stripe rust, and Hessian Fly resistance.

Recent WestBred variety releases include Armour and Hitch. Armour, a Hard Red Winter wheat, is an early maturing wheat with tolerance to low PH soils.
Disease characteristics include leaf rust and powdery mildew resistance.
Hitch, also a Hard Red Winter, has leaf rust and stripe rust resistance.
This wheat also has an excellent straw strength, and is late to mature.

AgriPro's recent releases include Art, Jackpot, and AP503 CL2, all Hard Red Winter wheat. If you are looking for a wheat with characteristics like tolerance to leaf rust, barley yellow dwarf, powdery mildew, and a better than average tolerance to scab, then Art is for you. This wheat is also tolerant to acid soils, and is early to mature. Jackpot, releasing as certified seed, is also early to mature and has good stripe rust tolerance.
This wheat has excellent winter hardiness, and is good for late planting.
The last for AgriPro this fall is AP503 CL2. This wheat has good leaf rust, stripe rust, and herbicide tolerance.

Remember to Look for the Blue Label when purchasing seed to ensure you take advantage of certified seed benefits. For more information on these varieties, please contact your local certified seed dealer, which can be found in the Kansas Wheat Book released by High Plains Journal with their August 3 edition.

For questions about seed certification, please contact the Kansas Crop Improvement Association at 785-532-6118.

Website: http://www.kscrop.org

Published: July 20, 2009